The Survivors

by Jane Harper

  ‘Yeah,’ Renn said. He sat back in his chair so heavily the wheels squeaked. He sounded suddenly very tired. ‘We did, didn’t we? Every single thing that happened in that storm. He and I had to deal with it.’

  ‘So you did know, then? And what? Never mentioned it?’

  There was a silence. Kieran braced himself for the order to leave but it didn’t come. The muted rattle of a photocopier firing up floated in from the hallway.

  ‘What happened to Bronte has been really hard.’

  Kieran, who had been about to launch in again, stopped in surprise at his words. Renn turned over the stack of photos on his desk. The dead woman smiled out and his face tightened.

  ‘It’s been hard for everyone, I know that. But in all my years in this job, I never thought I’d see something like this happen here. I keep thinking about what I’ve done – or haven’t done, maybe? – for that to happen on my watch. When did Evelyn Bay become a place where a girl who comes for summer work ends up dead?’ Renn turned the photos facedown again and Bronte disappeared once more. ‘I want it cleared up. I had her mum and dad in here again earlier and I want to be able to give them an answer. I can’t leave here with this on my conscience, but they won’t keep the station open indefinitely –’

  He surveyed his half-empty office and took a breath.

  ‘George Barlin told me and Pendlebury something looked off with the storm timings when we went round to his place to get him to sign a statement about Bronte. He thought he’d stuffed up his research and kept asking about it. Wouldn’t let it go.’

  There was a clatter from out in the hallway, and they all looked at the door. A muffled swearword floated in, followed by the sound of a box being repacked. Renn turned back to Kieran.

  ‘And this is at the same time as Pendlebury was getting very interested, mate, in the fact that your dad was the last person seen with Gabby Birch, and then also found wandering around when Bronte was killed. I’d already got Trish Birch talking up a connection, and then suddenly there’s George Barlin picking holes in a timeline concerning your family that day, Kieran.’

  Kieran felt like he could hardly breathe. The pram creaked as Mia rocked it back and forth.

  ‘That storm –’ The phone on Renn’s desk started to ring. He checked the number, then waited until it stopped before he spoke again. ‘The storm has done its damage. There’s nothing to be gained from letting that wound fester. I really believed that. I still do. Things were done and decisions were made at the time, rightly or wrongly, and as a community we got through it and we moved on. But Pendlebury wants answers about Bronte as much as I do, so she’s asking questions.’ Renn dropped his chin. ‘And she’s looking years into the past and then she’s looking at Brian, and so I have to tell her about some of those decisions made back in the storm. Because I want this resolved for Bronte and for her mum and dad, and we’re not going to be able to do that if I’ve got key officers wasting time looking in the wrong direction.’

  Kieran swallowed. ‘Thank you. Chris –’

  ‘Don’t thank me yet.’

  The office was so quiet, they could hear someone’s mobile ringing in another room. And suddenly, in what felt like a blinding premonition, Kieran had the urge to turn back the clock. Refuse to take Pendlebury down to the caves, tell her he’d made his peace with the storm and wasn’t interested in dredging it up again. He wished he and Mia had gone home instead of coming here to this police station, where he suddenly found himself very afraid of what Sergeant Renn was going to say next. He felt Mia stir. She looked worried too.

  ‘Finn and Toby were already out on the water that day,’ Renn said. ‘You’re right about that. Despite all the warnings and whatever, they’d got on their boat as the storm came in and by the time we got word you were in trouble out at the caves, they’d already left the marina. And I didn’t know exactly why then, and I still don’t –’ Renn looked Kieran in the eye. ‘– and that’s the truth.’

  He took a breath, and Kieran had to fight the urge to tell him to stop talking. He’d heard enough. That was all he needed to know.

  ‘But this is what I can tell you. After Finn and Toby drowned, we worked hard to bring their boat back in, to show your families we cared about those blokes. We said we’d look it over, me and Sergeant Mallott. Try to help your families by giving them the best information we could about what’d happened.’

  Renn shifted again in his chair. There was no disguising his uneasiness now.

  ‘And as it was, Sergeant Mallott did find something on the Nautilus Black.’

  ‘What?’ Kieran couldn’t stop himself. ‘What did he find?’

  ‘Gabby Birch’s backpack.’

  Chapter 32

  There was a rustle from inside the pram, the soft thrash of limbs and Audrey began to cry. Kieran barely registered the sound. Mia had curled herself forward with her elbows on her knees and her face in her palms. Audrey’s wails bounced off the office walls until finally Sergeant Renn moved to stand.

  ‘I’ve got her.’ Kieran got up and reached into the pram. ‘Don’t touch her.’

  Renn held up his hands and sat down again.

  ‘The bag was locked in the dry box –’ Renn realised Kieran had stayed standing. ‘Sorry, do you still want to hear this?’

  Kieran felt a lot like he was shaking, but Audrey was steady in his arms as he soothed her. Did he want to hear? Gabby Birch’s backpack. What he really wanted was for that not to be true.

  Mia said something, her voice muffled. She lowered her hands and tried again. ‘Just tell us.’

  Renn glanced at the door. There was no sound from the hall now.

  ‘Me and Geoff Mallott were working flat out from the minute that storm passed through. The town was a wreck. We had people injured. We’d been organising the search crews for Gabby, getting word out. Circulating her description, what she’d been wearing. Her bag. Purple stripes with a kangaroo key ring.’ Renn rubbed his neck, remembering. ‘Looking over the Nautilus Black was a courtesy. We didn’t have the time really, wouldn’t have done it for tourists. But with it being two local men, local families –’

  Renn looked up at Kieran, still on his feet.

  ‘We wanted to make sure you all felt like we’d taken care of them. But we were busy, and I’d been held up at the station dealing with things still coming in and I was rushing down to the marina to meet Mallott. I was nearly at the gate, you know, that one where you can look straight across the docks?’

  He paused, as Kieran nodded.

  ‘I was still a fair way away but I could see Mallott already on the boat. He had the boltcutters out and was working on the padlock on the dry box. My phone rang; it was the medical centre with some crisis and I had to stop at the gate to take the call. I was annoyed, I remember, pacing up and down because I needed to get them off the phone so I could get on with things. I looked out across the docks and I could see Sergeant Mallott. He’d got the box open and was reaching inside –’ Renn stared at his desk, his gaze somewhere far away and long ago. ‘– and he pulled something out. And it looked to me a whole lot like purple-striped fabric.’

  Kieran held Audrey tight as Renn opened his mouth again.

  ‘And I remember feeling completely blindsided. I didn’t know what to make of it, and I couldn’t work it out, because I was stuck on that bloody call.’ Renn breathed out. ‘It took ages, and I’m having to search my bag for notes I made hours earlier, and being transferred by the medical centre to a doctor at the hospital, and then at last I can hang up.

  ‘So I’m rushing into the marina, apologising, stressed out, and I’m expecting Mallott to call me over to the dry box to corroborate, take some photos, but he doesn’t. He’s just standing on the deck – as normal as you like – and he says he’s all finished. He asks me to call the relief coordinators and tell them we’ll be coming around to do checks and updates.’


  Mia made a small noise in her throat. She was staring at him, her hands clasped tight in her lap.

  ‘So I asked Mallott straight out what was in the dry box.’ Renn’s mouth pressed into a hard line. ‘And he said there was nothing much. Those were the words he used. Nothing much. Charts and things. The lid was wide open by then. I had a look inside. There was no bag in there.’

  Kieran felt a stirring of hope. ‘Maybe you were wrong.’

  ‘Yeah, I wondered that too. I mean, it had been chaos, and I must’ve repeated that description of Gabby a hundred times. I thought maybe I was so tired I’d got confused. So I said to Mallott that I thought I’d seen him lift something out of the box. He looked me in the eye and he said no.’ Renn shook his head. ‘And I knew that he was lying to me. I could tell. It was the first time I’d ever known him to do that. I couldn’t think what to do.’

  The faint sounds of chatter rose and fell as someone passed in the corridor. Mia took a breath. ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Geoff and I stood there looking at each other, and then he got on his radio like nothing had happened. He ordered me to follow him to the cars and we went and did our relief checks. We were at it until the early hours. When we finally finished, I went home but I couldn’t sleep. I kept running it over in my mind, and the next morning I felt sure I knew what I’d seen.’ Renn gave a hard smile. ‘Mallott was already here at the station when I got in. Early – earlier than I’d ever known him to get here – like he was waiting for me. So I put it to him straight, said I thought I’d seen Gabby’s bag in the box. He sat me down. Here in this room –’ Renn nodded to where Kieran and Mia were sitting on the other side of the battered desk. ‘And he told me I was wrong.’

  ‘He denied it?’ Kieran said.

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t admit it,’ Renn said. ‘Which isn’t quite the same thing. But he brought me in here, gave me a coffee, talked in that matter-of-fact way of his about how we had three families grieving. Did I really want to go stirring things up when we had no answers, only more questions? He kept going on about how before I went upsetting families, I’d really want to have proof of something, like the bag itself. Did I have the bag? Did I have anything like that?’

  Renn leaned back and his chair groaned.

  ‘We argued. Me and him. I wanted to call in the families, starting with Trish and Olivia. Tell them what I’d seen. Mallott kept repeating himself. Really calm. We had two men dead. A lot of people to think about. Your parents, Kieran, worried about your recovery. Toby’s wife was filled up to her eyes with prescription meds, she was so upset by what had happened. His boy Liam was only young. And wherever Gabby was, she wasn’t on that boat anymore. So we were no further forward.’

  Renn closed his eyes, frowning.

  ‘So yeah, we argued. As much as that was possible. I was young, brand new. Mallott was my sergeant. I know –’ He held up a hand as Kieran opened his mouth. ‘I know that’s no excuse, but that’s how it was. I went back to the Nautilus Black myself, but there was no sign of any backpack by then, so the chain of evidence was already destroyed. Next thing, I hear some dog walkers have found the bag on the beach. Pretty bloody convenient, like Trish has always said.’

  Kieran pictured Trish Birch. The way she scoured the sea. He felt his chest clench.

  ‘When I heard the bag had washed up –’ Renn said. ‘I reckon I had about five seconds to open my mouth and tell everyone what I thought had really happened. But it had been such a bloody hard time and I’d been running on empty for days, working nonstop. I could barely think straight. And the funerals were around the corner and everyone was still shaken up and vulnerable and –’ He stopped. ‘I didn’t say anything. And then after that, I couldn’t, could I? I felt like my hands were tied. The funerals were dreadful. The families were devastated and it was obvious how much Finn and Toby had meant to everyone, and I thought –’

  Renn looked up at the ceiling, blinking.

  ‘I don’t know, honestly. I suppose I started to think maybe Geoff Mallott was right. Finding that backpack on the boat only gave us more questions than answers about Gabby. It didn’t clear anything up, and it would definitely cause a lot more confusion and pain. Mallott reckoned we’d all had enough of that. I wondered if maybe he had a point.’

  ‘This is bullshit.’ Kieran surprised himself. He saw Mia look up. ‘It is. So what if the bag was on the boat? Gabby fell in the water. Finn and Toby must have fished out her backpack. That’s all.’

  ‘No.’ Renn was already shaking his head. ‘No, mate. That bag hadn’t been in the sea. There was a bit of damage to the boat itself, yeah, but that dry box was watertight. You know what it’s like. Nothing gets in there. I could see it for myself, even while Mallott stood there lying to me. There was no water in there. You could still read the handwriting on the charts. The bag can’t have been wet when it was put inside, or it would have leaked and dripped all over the place. But it was bone dry in that box. Someone carried that backpack on board.’

  Mia fixed her eyes on Renn. ‘Who?’

  ‘Who knows?’ he said. ‘Gabby herself? Finn? Toby? Someone else? But if Gabby Birch was on that boat that day, it wasn’t because she was pulled out of the sea.’

  Chapter 33

  Mia was the first to react.

  ‘We have to tell Olivia,’ she said, pushing back her chair. ‘And Trish.’

  ‘Wait,’ Kieran started, but she was already standing up. ‘Mia, okay, just –’

  ‘No.’ She slowed though, and took a step closer. She touched his arm. ‘No, Kieran. We’re not going to do this. This is not the kind of thing you want to keep to yourself. Do you hear me? It would be unbearable.’ She didn’t need to look at Renn, who had his elbows on the desk and his head in his hands. ‘I can’t do it, and I can’t watch you do it.’

  ‘But –’ Kieran felt Audrey twist in his arms and his head was suddenly full of Trish Birch. Her backpacks. Her slow walks up and down the shoreline, searching for a sign from someone so long gone. How would Kieran measure up against the nightmare of his own child lost? He thought about Trish, and Bronte’s parents, and – his heart constricted in a familiar way – Brian and Verity. He could feel the flutter of Audrey’s pulse. He didn’t know how any of them got through a single day. He couldn’t bring himself to imagine what it took.

  ‘I’ll tell Trish and Olivia,’ Renn said, into his hands.

  Mia turned. ‘You’ve had twelve years to tell them.’

  ‘I know.’ He raised his head. ‘I have wanted to, though. Every single time I see Trish, I think about telling her. Every time. When I see her on that beach. When I hear that she’s thrown another one of those bags of hers into the ocean. How much longer can I stand back and let her keep doing that?’ He rubbed his face in frustration. ‘I’ve wanted to tell Olivia, whenever I can see that she’s sad or worried. Which is a lot. So yeah, I’m very aware of what it’s done to that family, don’t you worry about that. The thing that’s stopped me, for what it’s worth –’ There was a long pause. ‘The truth hurts a lot of people. That was the case then, and it’s the case now. And it still doesn’t bring Gabby back. Trish and Olivia stay hurt anyway.’

  Mia wavered, then opened her mouth. ‘But Trish –’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Renn stopped her. ‘I do know. I’ll talk to them. And Toby’s family. With everything going on, it’s going to come out anyway. Sue Pendlebury knows now, and I can’t see George Barlin letting his questions about the timings drop. But I’d like to tell Trish myself. So I can tell her I’m sorry.’ Renn looked like a man lost. ‘And I’d like Olivia to hear it from me.’

  Mia was already reaching to put Audrey in the pram, but Kieran stayed where he was.

  ‘Wait –’ he said.

  ‘Kieran,’ she said. ‘You know they have to be told. Whether Chris does it or we do, they have to hear it.’

  ‘I know that.’ Kieran he
ld on tight to his daughter and looked at Renn. ‘But you have to give me the chance to tell my mum first.’

  Verity was in the ocean. She was standing waist-deep with her head moving slowly back and forth as she watched Brian swim laps. Brian drove through the water with a smooth freestyle stroke. His technique was still very good, Kieran thought. He hadn’t forgotten that at least. Verity shielded her eyes and waved as she saw them approaching.

  ‘He loves this. And it’s easier than trying to persuade him to have a shower,’ Verity said, her smile fading as she noticed their faces. ‘What’s wrong?’

  They took her to sit among the boxes on the back verandah. Brian lay on his towel in a patch of sunlight with his eyes closed, letting the heat dry his board shorts.

  Kieran didn’t know how to begin. After a few false starts Verity frowned – ‘For God’s sake, Kieran, just say it’ – and Mia had to step in. She faltered as well as Verity’s face slowly began to change, hardening around the eyes first and then the mouth and jaw. Kieran took over once more and eventually, with Mia’s help, they followed Verity’s advice and just came out with it. Verity sat with her hands in her lap and her head tilted forward as she listened to them explain what Pendlebury had said, and then Renn. The timings, the boat, the box, the backpack. Kieran didn’t finish speaking as much as trail off as Verity suddenly stood up.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Well, I’d better get your dad dried and dressed.’

  ‘But –’ Kieran watched in disbelief as she walked across the verandah. ‘Mum, wait. Just, stop, okay? Are you going to say anything?’

  ‘What can I possibly say to all that?’ She didn’t look at them. ‘Obviously, it’s not true.’

  ‘But Sergeant Renn –’

  ‘Chris Renn is wrong.’

  Mia shifted. ‘He sounded sure, Verity. From the way he was talking, he’s obviously thought about this a lot.’